Giant Walking Dragline Explained

Globetrotting social media earthmoving machinery sensation Buildwitt has been up close and personal with the giant Bucyrus-Erie 2570-Ws at the Freedom Mine in North Dakota.

Aaron Witt aka Buildwitt posed the question, “what the heck is a dragline, and how do they work?”, and he got all the answers he could have possibly wished for from the team at The North American Coal Corporation.

This vast site produces 14.5m tonnes of coal per year, with help from a number of extreme machines.

Most of the overburden at the mine is taken care of by not one, but three Bucyrus-Erie 2570-W walking draglines with 123-cubic-yard buckets and various boom sizes: two with 335ft booms, and one with a 340ft boom designed and installed by P&H/Joy Global, now owned by Komatsu. These incredible beasts are affectionately known as ‘Missouri Quest’, ‘Sakakawea’ and ‘Freedom's Frontier’. The first two were purchased in the 1980s, while Freedom Frontier joined the fleet in 2008.

So how big is the Bucyrus-Erie 2570-W? Well, the tub or base diameter is 80ft, while the width of the machine over its shoes is 110ft, and the shoes themselves are 72x14ft. With the boom set at a 35-degree angle, it stands 208ft tall. The operating weight, meanwhile, is a colossal 6235 tons. The walking speed is 0.15mph with steps of 8ft 6in!

Aaron’s visit focussed on the ‘Missouri Quest’ and in the video below he gives us an in-depth look around both inside and out, check it out, it’s a cracker!